A museum dedicated to the 2,996 victims of the 9/11 attacks was opened by Barack Obama today.

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum features 10,000 poignant artifacts, including a New York fire truck and ambulance crushed by falling masonry from the Twin Towers.

The fate of both crews is unknown.

Visitors to the £418million museum, near the site of the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan, will find an array of heart-breaking artifacts from the day.

A pair of spectacles found at Ground Zero and a pair of slippers from the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 are among the 10,000 items, while there are also 23,000 photographs, 1,900 oral histories and 500 hours of film and video.

One poignant display plays the telephone messages left to loved ones from those who knew they were about to die in the towers.

As they descend 70ft below the city, visitors pass part of the ‘survivors’ staircase’ that hundreds used to escape as the skyscrapers burned and crumble.

He said: “All I could think of was, I wonder what happened to the firefighters that were assigned that day on that engine and whether they survived and what were their last thoughts if they didn’t.

“The museum is a place where you can come to understand 9/11 through the lives of those who were killed and the lives of those who rushed here to help.”

The opening of the museum is the end of eight years of work with battles over funding and which exhibits should be used. One controversy centred on moving the unidentified remains of victims to the museum.

Figurehead: US President Barack Obama speaks during the dedication ceremony (Image: Getty)

Paula Berry, who lost her husband David when the towers fell, said it will help victims’ families.

She said: “When I saw it in completion it actually floored me.

“It’s extraordinarily hard. It’s going to be hard for family members to see and re-experience that day.

“This is going to be a very powerful and necessary experience. It will be healing.”